Sunday Salon/Sunday Post - August 2, 2026: Fake End of the Year

This is the last weekend of the summer for my whole family together this year. Yesterday the kids and I traveled a couple hours across the state to see Our Town by the Hope Repertory Theatre. The show's lead, Emily Webb, was played by a friend from my daughter's cohort at school doing her summer stock shows. And the show was excellent! Real tears were shed. Afterward, we headed to Hopcat for an excellent linner (late lunch, early dinner).

Today we're headed around town for errands. We'll head to Best Buy first, to return the Galaxy 7 watch I bought on Friday (which does not connect well to my Pixel phone) and hopefully get a Garmin watch (if it isn't too much more costly - in which case it may need to wait a couple weeks). Then my son and I will drop my daughter off at work and head to the comic book store in town so he can window shop, then to a couple more practical stores to get the last of the things he wants/needs on hand for camp (and a couple groceries for the house like dinner for tonight).

In the meantime, I'm up a bit before most of them to start my Sunday post and join up with those doing the Sunday Salon (hosted by Readerbuzz) and Sunday Post (hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer). I'm truly looking forward to this evening, after the busy-ness and hub-bub, when I can take some quiet time to visit some of the usual participants who I enjoy following along in life with.

What I'm Reading This Week:

Last night I finished Honey by Imani Thompson. I'm figuring out what to say, as it was not what I expected from the blurb, but I am glad I read it - probably 4 out of 5 stars? I'll decide what to start next on my kindle later today. I'm thoroughly engrossed in the audiobook of Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid on my way to and from work. Loving it! (BTW, looks like there's currently a giveaway for print copies of the book on Goodreads through Aug 13 or so.) And I started the print book of Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash. It's one of the books for the Battle of the Books competition in a couple weeks.

Three Good Things:

1. Okay. The first thing that came to mind made me wonder if this is from the previous week, or looking forward? No matter. Ima list what I list. LOL I'm excited to have this coming Wednesday off of work! We're taking the boy to camp, where he'll be for 12 days. It's his first time, but it's a pretty well known camp with multiple sessions where his cousins also go (but not during the same week). He is super excited.
2. Yesterday was a really great day with the kiddos. They are fabulous road-trippers who roll with the punches. We planned to get there early and get a meal before the show, but the town was PACKED and an hour was unlikely to be enough time. We got concessions, loved the show, and went back to where we originally planned to eat afterward instead. I was worried about them being way hungry during the show, but then we all almost laughed out loud when it was MY stomach that audibly delivered practically a monologue during a quiet part of the show. I was MORTIFIED. Part way home we stopped for root beer floats at some place off the expressway that my daughter knew of, and drove by the big lake just to say we did. I'm so grateful for days like yesterday.
3. I re-gifted my Davincified dragon painting. I realized what was intended to be a distraction from stress, and something to do to free my mind and relax, was adding pressure because I wasn't really looking forward to working on it. Some things will be our jam, and some will not. And my closest co-worker was excited to receive it and says she is looking forward to the process, but would not have picked that painting, so she'll probably finish it and give it back all done!

Three Goals for This Week/Month/Whatever:

1. I'm gonna get a smart watch and get it set up! Technology is usually frustrating for me, but it sounds like the right watch that properly connects should be pretty user friendly. I'll give it one more try. If not today, in a couple weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
2. Continue with my office's water challenge! Starting July 27, we're challenged and tracking how much water we consume each day. The goal of the challenge is 64 oz for 20 out of 28 days. So far so good! I got 80 oz/day on the Monday - Friday of last week. I always planned to not try yesterday (because who honestly wants to pee that often on a road trip). I'll hopefully get it done today after errands, and then tomorrow it will be back to guzzling at work. I'm taking Wednesday off again (road trip to camp). At work, I try to empty my 40oz Owala (I have a white-ish one, and a forest green one) before lunch, and again after. So far, so good!
3. I think I'm going to try my Woobles crochet kit today! I got the Yeti for a christmas gift from my kids, but was disappointed to find that the instructions are online. Now that I have my new laptop and keep it in the living room, I can hang out among my other humans as they do their activities and teach myself to crochet, more or less. And looking at the website now, there's other cute kits if I end up liking it. We'll see!